[H]ard|OCP has some information on the next motherboard in “Republic Of Gamers” line from ASUS. There's also a picture of the board along with a complete list of specifications. You can clearly see the "Strike Extreme" brand from the PCB, which will be the name of future Intel version motherboards part of the Republic of Gamers line.

can anyone say asus crosshair intel edition? imo the extra pci-e slot is worthless, ageia and board partneres will be releasing a card in pci-e flavous, itll be much cheaper and wont require a massive slot, a 4x slot is all it needs, good for airflow if u ask me.

Wow no one noticed that the 4/8 pin, 12V connector is right underneath the heatpipe. Have fun trying to figure out how to install it LOL

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Well it looks like it is under one of the higher heatpipes, so I would assume there is enough room to squeeze it in there, but who knows? That connector is already hard enough to plug in, especially if you have fat stubby finger like me. I would like to see it at a few different angles before passing judgement though.

Also, the way the picture was taken, it could just be that it LOOKs like the heatpipe is on top of the connector, it very well could be one of those wonderful optical illusions you get when you take a 2D picture of a 3D object.

the Heat Pipe maybe higher but its still directly over top the 12V PSU connector. And, its not a good idea to place live wires next to a hot copper pipe. What if the heat or just friction alone removes the installation of the wire.:shadedshu

The friction of a smooth copper pipe on wires isn't going to strip the insulation off the wires, especially since the wires won't be moving, so there won't be any rubbing going on.

The heat pipes also shouldn't get that hot, certainly they aren't going to get any hotter then say a CPU heatsink, and that 12v PSU connector is very often left sitting right on top of the CPU heatsink, which also can have some rather sharp edges on the fins. I would be more worried about that then the heatpipe.

Like I said though, I don't think that heatpipe is actually over the connector, I believe it is just the way the picture is taken and what perspective we are seeing the board at that makes it seem like the connector is blocked by a heatpipe.

i actually dont think the heatpipe is right above the connector. i looks that way from the shot, but the pic isnt looking straight down on top of the connector, its at a slight angle. i would assume they wouldnt look over that major detail. plus, looking at the 3 heatsinks under the heatpipe (to the left top and right of the cpu), it looks as if it is probably an inch above the actual mobo.

You buy one of the actually good PCI-E sound cards(X-fi is far from top of the line, I won't consider any card that isn't PCI-E and can't do realtime digital out top of the line).

Also, there is nothing saying that you have to have cards with double slot coolers. Who knows, by the time SLI physics sees the light of day, they might have the DX10 cards down to single slot coolers(at least maybe the cards one step down from the top cards might have one slot coolers like the 7900GTX>7900GT).

Also, there is nothing saying that the third card used for physics has to be the same as the beastly cards used for graphics. Who knows, maybe NVidia will do the same thing ATi said they will do, and let you use a significantly weaker card to do the physics, one that doesn't need a two slot cooler, allowing you to use the bottom PCI slot for a sound card.